Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Is our Children Learning?

Well I'm still bummed about so many people being disenfranchised in the Roane county elections. I should have known this was going to happen and I wonder if some folks knew it and planned for it. Seems like a taste of Ohio all over again.

At any rate, here's a big cheer for all of those folks who stood for hours to excercise their constitutional right to vote...shame on those who didn't...and tripple shame on the deep and destructive failure of our election officials that set this up to happen.

From the Roane County News:

(Election Administrator Tony Brown is a hard working man but he is greatly confused. Here's what he's quoted as saying in the roane County Newspaper)

Brown said some voters said additional voting machines would have helped moved the lines along.

Brown didn't agree.

He reasoned that even if a precinct had three additional machines, it would only take three voters out of line.

With 80 people in line and three additional machines, there would still be 77 voters in line, Brown said.

He blamed the long ballot and the number of people running for office for the backups.

It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that with math skills like that, no wonder we are in trouble. As an aside, this was actually pointed out to me by a scientist... thanks Charlie.

I want to know how many voting machines were in place at each precinct. In the precinct I worked there were only two. last election there had been four. When the polls opened there were about twenty people in line. The next person to show up waited one and a half hours to vote...if they waited...and waited...

Thousands didn't and I want to know why?

At any rate this should prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that Education is the key to a good community on all sorts of levels. Build a good school system and you'll have the job growth you want...and maybe the right number of voting machines.

2 comments:

Ah, the rampant incompetence in small-town politics.I don't know if that problem can be fixed!This brings me to the main question: How can the importance of education be portrayed to the "practical minded" people of rural areas and small towns?Just from my personal experience of the Rockwood/Harriman area, time seems to stand still there. There seems to be no form of (or push toward) progression in these types of areas. The majority doesn't want change!

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About Me

I live as deep in the woods as I can, on the banks of White's Creek where it cuts through the edge of the Cumberland Plateau. It's a good spot for someone who loves people but gets enough of them from time to time. My wife and kids put up with my eccentricities well enough and seem to like where we live, even though we have to drive a good bit to live our active lifestyle. It is the one incongruity of my existence. Our house is a passive solar design with an electrically heated hot tub. Contradictions are everywhere, but we do what we can.
We have a resident Eagle population in the gorge that salutes us most mornings with a fly by during coffee. It's a good spot to live.